Romaine

This reduced-fat version hits all the flavor notes of the original Caeser.

Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 30 min

The great flavor of toasted cumin adds a nice dimension to this easy side dish. It's an extra step that is definitely worth it.

Active time: 15 min Start to finish: 30 min

Great on its own or served alongside grilled fish, chicken or steak.

This recipe makes more dressing than you'll need. The remainder makes a great everyday dressing for any type of green salad, or a delicious dip for chicken wings or raw vegetables.

Beets--both pickled and boiled--have long been a popular German side dish for meats. The sour cream dressing gets a kick from vinegar and mustard.

The chef's salad is a familiar yet fading star in the salad world. In delicatessens, diners, and airport snack bars everywhere, we find its faithful components: lifeless leaves of iceberg lettuce, suspiciously blue-hued slices of hard-boiled egg, wedges of pallid tomato, and rubbery chunks of cheese, ham, and turkey. To top it all off (or perhaps sitting alongside): gloppy, high-calorie dressing. But this still-beloved salad may have had a noble beginning. Though nobody has ever stepped forward to claim the title of the chef in "chef's salad," the dish has been attributed by some food historians to Louis Diat, chef of The Ritz-Carlton in New York City in the early 1940s. He paired watercress with halved hard-boiled eggs and julienne strips of smoked tongue, ham, and chicken. (The concept of the chef’s salad dates still earlier; one seventeenth-century English recipe for a "grand sallet" calls for lettuce, roast meat, and a slew of vegetables and fruits.) No matter how the salad has evolved, its underlying virtue remains unchanged. This is a no-cook meal that satisfies our cravings for greens and protein. And, in these dog days of summer-when cooking is sometimes the last thing we'd like to do-a main-course salad is especially appealing. In our updated take on the classic recipe, we used a selection of lettuces (early chef's salads were not always made with iceberg alone), and, in a twist on the norm, small but flavorful amounts of sugar-cured ham and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Feel free to improvise with ingredients depending on what looks good at your farmers market. Summer savory or dill can flavor the dressing in place of the mixed herbs, and many kinds of ham and cheese will work well.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Roasting the garlic for the dressing sweetens it and softens its pungency. By the way, our interpretation of this salad did omit one traditional element—there is no raw egg in it, in keeping with modern health concerns.

Shake up some Margaritas (limeade for the kids) and slather grilled corn on the cob with cumin-seasoned butter. For dessert, top fudge brownies with coffee ice cream and Kahlúa.

You can substitute flour tortillas for lavash.

A colorful salad that is refreshing alongside the lamb chops. Green or red bell peppers can be added to the salad, if you like.